Conference Books — Fall 20090

Mormon Life says: Super interesting to look at all the books featured in General Conference.

This is my fourth compilation of the books and other media mentioned or referenced each General Conference. The results remain quite interesting. This conference I was impressed by poetry.

I’m not suggesting that the poetry was the best of what was mentioned, or that the poetry was particularly notable or even that there was a lot of poetry. Given how poetry sells, it is interesting that we get as much mentioned as we do. Why is it that speakers seem to know so much poetry, and poetry of somewhat obscure poets, for that matter?

In this conference, for example, Elder Cook cited the poetry of John Holmes (1904-1962), a poet and academic who taught at Tufts University, and whose poetry is largely out-of-print, but is available online in Tufts Library’s digital archive. [FWIW, I don't see any obvious connection between Elder Cook and Holmes or Tufts University.]

Regardless of how speakers are exposed to poetry, I’m very glad poetry finds it way into General Conference.

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